Developing Solar Artworks - March update

Back in December we announced that Art and Energy’s Jenny has been successful with a bid to the Arts Council England ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ fund. We’ve been enjoying digging out the soldering irons and solar cells, chatting to people who know about solar, and asking the question ‘What will you use your energy to power?’ Thank you Arts Council England for supporting us on our solar adventure!

We’re looking forward to including development of solar artworks whilst Artist in Residence at GROW studios in Plymouth from 23-29th March - Join us on Sunday 26th between 1-5pm to find out more (if you can’t maker the Sunday but are keen to join in then do contact us!)

Embellishing Big Solar Panels

Last year Plymouth Energy Community kindly donated to us 2 full size solar panels. These had come off of a solar array at a school buildingthat was due for demolition. The panels had been in place for 5 years, others from the site have now been installed on a number of community buildings in Plymouth.

We set ourselves the challenge of embellishing these rather boring panels so that they carry an Art And Energy message… Whilst at GROW we’ll be masking one up with a landscape design ready to be sandblasted. We’ll also be thinking about what it might power to compliment the design nd add to the message.

Upcycling!

We love a bit of upcycling - particularly inspired by her time as Artist in Residence at Plymouth Scrapstore this autumn, Jenny’s been playing with upcycled solar units to power mini-motors rescued from dud electric toothbrushes and broken children’s toys. She’s found that the top of the cargo bike is a particularly useful work bench as it can be easily rotated to face the sun. We’re looking forward to warmer drier weather when we can do more of this experimentation!

Solar Artwork - Process

As part of the DYCP Arts Council funding Jenny planned to visit a solar panel manufacturer in the UK… but we’ve since found that their manufacturing process has moved overseas. Solar panel manufacturers use high tech equipment to make highly efficient and durable units - We’ve been taking a more DIY approach using tools that you might find in most home workshops. We’ve been reading about solar encapsulation and trying to find a compromise… a Heath-Robinson solar encapsulator… if this is something you know about then please do get in touch.